


Camp

by LinksLipsSinkShips



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Descriptions of chemotherapy, Love Triangles, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Mild Infidelity Mentions, Recreational Drug Use, There's no MC death but one MC that isn't RandL is dead before the start of the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 16,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23095276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinksLipsSinkShips/pseuds/LinksLipsSinkShips
Summary: Rhett has high expectations for his first summer as a camp counselor at Camp Burning Pine. After the campers are in bed, he's ready for late-night paddles across the lake, a few drunken parties in the storage cabin, and maybe even a hookup with Griffin, the counselor from the camp across the lake. He's been thinking about him all year.Link never expected taking over Griffin's job to be this hard. Never mind that he's not exactly outdoorsy... being surrounded by everything Griffin treasured is hard. Even worse? Some asshole from across the lake won't stop pestering him, and now he's claiming he hooked up with Griffin. If Link manages not to kill him by the end of summer, it'll be a miracle. Especially if he can endure it through the waves of grief that hit him at the worst possible moments.
Relationships: Link Neal/Original Male Character(s), Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal, Rhett McLaughlin/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 73
Kudos: 101





	1. Dear Mom

_ Dear Mom, _

_ Let’s be real. You’re never going to get this letter anyway, are you? All of this stationary you send every single year is a complete formality. We both nod and smile when you hand it to me and you make me promise to write, we exchange a hug, and then we never talk about it again. You’ve been doing it for six years and for six years I haven’t written you a damn thing. _

_ But it’s a nice formality. A tradition just for us. _

_ I guess you wouldn’t want to know what I’ve really used it for, that your stationary with crisp white envelopes and super expensive paper is better suited to sneaky love letters across the lake to the all-boys camp, or for sending word that I’d really, really like to score some pot if anyone has any. You probably wouldn’t give me the stationary if you knew that’s what it was being used for, but thanks anyway. I’m glad you send it with me. _

_ Not that you ever get to see it again, like I said. _

_ But for two seconds, let’s pretend I’ll actually send this letter to you. _

_ Hi Mom, _

_ It’s three days til camp starts and I’m in orientation  _ ~~_ hell _ ~~ _ heck  _ ~~_ shit _ ~~ _ shoot I forgot I was pretending you’d actually see this. It’s a little different hearing the rules as a counselor instead of a camper, but it’s the same basic  _ ~~_ shit _ ~~ _ stuff anyway. I’m getting paid for it, so I don’t mind listening. The downside is, as a camper they always told us the rules outside. This year, we’re all crammed into the back of the cafeteria, a blank-walled building with no windows nearby. I can’t look outside. Oh, and the air conditioner isn’t working. They say it’ll be fixed before the campers get here, but for now everybody’s sweaty. It’s hot as heck in there and it smells bad. _

_ I’m pretty ready to be done with orientation and to get to hang out in the cabins and around the camp more. At least there haven’t been any pranks from MeadowLake yet, but I know they’re coming. It always ramps up around the start of camp. Always. _

_ Anyway I hope you don’t mind that I don’t write you. It’s just that it’s hard to find time to write to you about stuff at camp. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to know about half of it anyway, so what do I tell you? Tell you about capture the flag and tug of war? _

_ Do you really want those kinds of fakesy stories? “Today, so and so barfed all over their bed and I had to clean it up” or “Today little Timmy got  _ another  _ bloody nose playing catch”? _

_ It happens, but it probably doesn’t make a very good letter. And if things go the way I want them to this summer, you probably don’t want me to write “hey mom, I paddled across the lake and got shamelessly nailed by a guy I barely met last summer, but damn, he’s so hot?” That doesn’t seem like something you want to hear. My camp counselor days will be boring and sweaty, and my camp counselor nights will be way more than you are gonna want to read about. _

_ It will be easier for both of us if you don’t have to read about any of it, I’ll tell you the cliffs notes version when I get home, spill the boring stuff and skip past all the things I can’t tell you once I’m back after camp. I guess this year I won’t have much time between camp and school, but that’s okay. I’ll make time to fill you in … within reason. _

_ Anyway, in a way this was kind of cathartic at least. Maybe that’s the whole point of this. Not to send ‘em home, but to write them just so I told the story. _

_ Have a great summer, mom. _

_ Even though you won’t read this. _

_ Your son, who you’d probably be ashamed of but whatever, _

_ Rhett _


	2. Stench

The room was a million times worse than Rhett had described in his letter home. For the most part, it was absolutely boring. The front of the mess hall was gorgeous: all exposed log, big windows, beautiful scenery visible. Where they were, in the back, was the opposite. Plain, white walls, almost no windows to be seen, and a miserable lack of anything interesting to look at. To combat the fact that there was no air conditioning, something solved in the front of the room with open windows and a cross-breeze, they’d filled the room with fans of all sizes and shapes. Industrial, standing, ceiling … it was noisy and distracting. Every fan creaked with the oscillation, all off-beat from each other, different times and speeds, a chorus of  _ squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak  _ that would put any hoard of mice to shame and drive the sanest man mad. Despite the many fans, the now-full cafeteria remained painfully hot. They did nothing to help with the smell.

He could imagine it’d be worse if he worked at the all-boys camp across the lake from them, but at least here, some of the girls put in an effort into smelling nice. Well, and he had also, but that barely made a dent on his side of the room. The cafeteria had naturally divided between the sides of the camp: boys on one side of the room, girls on the other side. Or, perhaps boys and girls weren’t the right way to describe them, since the campers weren’t yet there. Young men and young women, each tasked trying to wrangle tweens and teens for an entire summer, sat listening. The smell of sweaty guys and half a bottle of Axe on his side of the room wasn’t even remotely pleasant, but it was probably better than the alternative. Over there, they had a nasal cacophony of fifty different body sprays, all in different scents. Any effort the girls made was almost overruled by the sheer amount of conflicting smells they brought to the table. Rhett almost gagged thinking about the mixture of watermelon and lavender.

Rhett wondered what they’d do if someone came who didn’t fit the gender binary. The camp hadn’t addressed it, and so far that hadn’t come up, but he internally cringed at the thought of how that might go over, given the camp’s age and rigidity in how they addressed the young men and women, boys and girls at the camp.

For now though, he picked at a muffin and rolled his eyes, willing time to pass quicker and trying not to look at the clock for the millionth time. As a camper, rules were made to be broken in between fun activities and only half-decent meals. As a counselor, it was just rules … and the same half-decent meals. Rhett wished they’d gotten everyone gathered elsewhere, or at least opened up the windows, but the experienced staff probably anticipated the fact that he’d spend more time staring out the windows than listening if they had. 

Rhett hadn’t become a counselor to sit in a boring building from eight until five, though. He’d come for the trees and water and the sky. He’d also come for other reasons … last year, it was because he’d met a cute guy named Griffin, smoked some pot by the side of the lake exactly one time because he was worried he’d get caught if he did it more often than that, and made out a little bit. It was possible he’d exaggerated the things he’d done over the summer to his friends back home, and in his letter he hadn’t even lied about who it was. Instead of mentioning some girl, he’d told his mom exactly who it was. He’d simply embellished it still. Why not? He hadn’t exactly hooked up with anybody, not the girls he’d told everyone about back home, and not the guy he’d written about or started falling for the summer before. Making out, though, he’d done that, and all he could hope for was that Griffin would be back this year.

Rhett desperately wanted to reconnect. He’d been thinking about him all year, and if he was honest, he was thinking about it now. If he didn’t stop, he’d have a whole different situation to deal with. He could practically feel his shorts getting tighter now. Instead of thinking about it, he tried to focus on everything Mike was telling them.

“Now we understand the rivalry, and we get that y’all are going to want to act on the rivalry. What we’re asking you to do is restrain from permanent damage in any way. We do  _ not  _ need another incident where we have to call the fire trucks. Another cabin burned to the ground is just about bound to get us shut down. Please keep it in check, guys. And gals. We expect better from you.”

Rhett remembered the year the cabin burned down. He hadn’t been a part of it burning down at all, but it was his second year as a camper, the summer after 9th grade. A few counselors from Burning Pine got drunk and paddled across the lake. After that, the stories diverged. Half of the people thought they had a party in the empty cabin and things got out of hand, resulting in a cigarette getting dropped on some spilled vodka … a total accident sparked by poor decisions. Pretty much everyone else figured it was a malicious attack, a plan to burn down the cabin in a streak of camp rivalry that started to go way too far. Most believed if it was an attack, it was retaliation for the underwear incident. Somehow, counselors from Camp MeadowLake had stolen all of the underwear from  _ every  _ counselor. How, nobody was really certain, but no one ever got their britches back. It was the summer of going commando. Nobody had gotten hurt in the fire at all, or the underwear incident for that matter, but it was still a dark stain on their camp history. Or it was a thing to laugh about, depending on what side of the lake you were on. Rhett tried to stifle his giggle.

“Let’s keep all rivalry-related incidents to friendly ribbing during our weekly Rivalry Games, yes? No property damage. Just a little harmless trash talk between counselors during Tug of War. Is that fair?” All of the rules seemed obvious to Rhett. Keep the cabins clean, don’t do anything illegal, no going across the lake unsupervised or without permission, a few other nonsense things … Mike could say what he wanted. The reality was every counselor was going to break every one of those rules at one time or another. Everybody went across the lake without permission. Everybody smuggled in alcohol in their camp bags or brought in a little weed to get through the summer. And yeah, the cabins got messy, but that was honestly the easiest of the rules to keep, thanks to cabin inspections.

Basically, all they had to do was not fuck anything up and not give any campers life-altering mental or physical wounds and everything was just fine. Why they needed eight hours to go over these things, Rhett wasn’t sure. Mostly he wondered when lunch was. Three muffins hadn’t filled him up at all, not even the big giant cafe-style muffins from the bakery in town since they catered food for the meetings until the kitchen was stocked and ready for summer. Rhett sat there quietly and listened. Eight more hours and he’d be off the hook for the night. Until the next day, when they started making bunk decorations to welcome the campers. He was prepared for that to be a complete nightmare.


	3. Circle of Hell

_ Man, I don’t know what circle of hell you threw me into but I’m not here for it. You didn’t tell me I was going to be in charge of 14 kids! What the hell, man? I don’t know why I’m angry at you like this. Not your fault you couldn’t be here. I mean, I may as well take over for you, I guess. _

_ The camp has a real original name. Camp MeadowLake. Yeah, that’s… that’s really original considering it’s a camp in a meadow next to a lake. I guess “lake” is generous. It’s more of a large pond, right? I mean, maybe the lake it’s connected to is a lake, but come on. I can see the other side. That ain’t no lake, baby. _

_ I got your old cabin. I hope that’s alright with you. I asked for it specifically because it makes me think of you. Is that dumb? Maybe that’s dumb. Maybe that’s really, really fucking dumb. Maybe I’ll regret the constant reminders that this is the view you woke up to, this is where you slept, this is where you spent summertime. _

_ Doesn’t matter. I miss you a lot. _

_ Still can’t believe you stuck me with this. _

_ Still can’t believe you can’t read this. _

_ XO, _

_ Link _


	4. Great Outdoors

Link hadn’t planned on being a counselor at Camp MeadowLake. Not really. He’d planned on sitting at home all summer, watching television and eating bowls of cereal, each one precariously perched on his stomach, head propped against the arm of the couch as he tried not to trickle milk across the towel laid on his chest.

That wasn’t how his summer was going, though. Instead, he was sitting on the world’s most uncomfortable bench in the center of Camp, around an unlit campfire. They’d light it later. For now, it was daytime and the light and heat weren’t exactly needed.

For as much as Link tried to pay attention to the rules, he found his mind wandering. There were birds in the trees, chirping above his head. There was a breeze, too, a ton of things to sense and think about and look at. If they’d wanted him to pay attention, they really should have moved this meeting indoors. He’d barely heard a single word the camp owner had said. He shook his head, trying to snap back into focus, but honestly, nothing made sense.

“We’ve worked out a few healthy ways to flex your rivalry, like a game of capture the flag. Let’s keep all property damage to a minimum. No retaliating for the fire, please.” Link vaguely remembered what Griffin had told him about the fire, something about the counselors across the lake coming and burning it to the ground because they were mad over underwear? Link didn’t really know the details.

What he did know is that he didn’t belong here. Everyone else here had some long-standing connections and friendships. They’d come to this camp since they were in 6th grade, 7th grade. Link was a newcomer. None of the other counselors here were coming in blind, and he was a misfit. It wasn’t the best way to start the summer, that was for sure. He could feel people staring at him, looking to see if he reacted to the mention of the fire at all, because they knew he was too new to know. He wanted to sneer at them, to glare back and make them feel as uncomfortable as they were making him feel, but that wasn’t the right answer. Instead he forced a smile and kept his eyes on Bryan, who kept rattling off rules about cabin checks, how often laundry would get done, and when the important dates of summer were. Link dutifully penned each one into the calendar in the back of his handbook. At first he wondered why they hadn’t just printed the dates in, but he realized it kept them more accountable if they wrote them in themselves.

Great. The whole fucking summer was going to be a test, and it felt like one he hadn’t studied for. He’d done the wrong thing, promising to come take Griffin’s place. Not like he’d had a choice. He would have promised anything he had to. It was just, he’d never actually expected he would have to fulfill that promise. He’d expected things to go back to normal, and he’d expected to spend the summer eating cereal.

This was worst-case-scenario, and it didn’t leave him feeling great about the summer ahead.  _ Oh well,  _ he thought.  _ At least you left me the bag of weed. _ If nothing else, it would get his mind off of it. Maybe it would even help him make a friend or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unless the internet is shut off during this pandemic, I will continue updating this on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Literally, until I cannot update it, I will keep updating it.


	5. Stranger

_ Dear Mom, _

_ I know the last way you’d want me to spend this summer is sneaking out my first night here. I get it. That’s probably not what you have planned for your son. _

_ The thing is, I’ve been thinking all year long about the guy in Belvedere Cabin across the lake. I’ve been thinking about the way his shaved head looked and how it felt when my hand was on the back of his head when we kissed. _

_ And I’ve been thinking about how skinny he was, but how cute he was even without any meat on his bones. Usually strong guys are my type — guess all that would be news to you, too, wouldn’t it? That I like guys at all. Not the point. — but he was something special, mom. I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s not here this summer. I wonder if he’s gotten fitter or if he’s still skinny. Doesn’t matter. He’s cute either way. He’s got this smile that can light up the whole room, I bet. It at least sparkled in the moonlight. I guess I only saw him once during the day. _

_ Anyway, I gotta go, mom. If I’m going to get across the lake before midnight, I can’t sit here writing you letters you’ll never read all night long. _

_ Kinda cool that I’m telling you  _ ~~_ shit _ ~~ _ stuff I couldn’t tell you in real life, though. I think you’ll judge me less in a letter. _

_ Love you mom. _

_ Your son, who is basically a stranger, _

_ Rhett _


	6. Row

Getting across the lake wasn’t difficult. There were a few options, really. One of the options was to walk around it, though that would take a solid two hours, which was a real time waster. Plus, it was exhausting to walk around there like that. By the time he finished getting over there, hanging out, and getting back, he wouldn’t get any sleep. A canoe was murder on the arms, but it was a straight shot across the lake and that was the best option. So, Rhett shoved off a little after eleven, paddling across the lake. It would have been easier to get across  _ with  _ someone, but that defeated the purpose of it entirely. He wanted to go alone, was supposed to go alone, and that was what he did.

Except he’d forgotten how long it took and how hard it was, the minutes ticking by. At first, it annoyed him how little progress he was making, that he’d rowed so hard and wasn’t that far across the lake at all. But then he gave himself into the feeling of nature, the way the waning moon glimmered over the water and the soft ripples his canoe made in it. He let himself reach down and touch the water, cool against his fingertips. And mostly he felt the cool breeze in his hair and on his skin. He resisted the urge to lie back in the canoe and just let it carry him wherever, you look up at the stars above. Here, they were far away from the city lights. Here, cabins turned their lights out at ten. It left a wide open sky for him to view, with only a few campground lights on each side of the lake to light up the night. It made the expanse of stars brighter, and if Rhett looked long enough, he might see a shooting star.

But he had to make it across the lake, and stargazing wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He filed it away. Maybe he could rope Griffin into some stargazing once they reconnected. If he even wanted to see Rhett. For the first time since he’d thought of him, Rhett started to get nervous that the summer fling wasn’t a lasting one, that their shared kisses and moments weren’t ones that would linger into this year, and the fingers of panic tightened around his throat. What if he was rejected? He was putting himself out there an awful lot to get rejected, and if word got around about who he was, well, that’d be even worse. The queer kid at camp? Hell, he’d be lucky if it didn’t cost him his job.

He couldn’t think about it, or he’d be half-tempted to turn around. He’d already made it a third of the way across the lake before the panic set in, and the dull ache of it carried him halfway across. By the time he reached the halfway point, he considered turning around again, trying to go back to his cabin and forget the whole thing, abort the mission for the entire summer. Once he  _ passed  _ the halfway point, he convinced himself it was no use. He’d made it more than halfway, and traveling that far to not even ask the questions, well, that seemed pointless. He sighed heavily, even though no one could hear him, then gave his paddles everything he had until his canoe was touching the shore on the side of Camp MeadowLake, with Camp Blazing Pine in the background. Say what they would for the cabin burning incident … it was at least very on-brand for a camp called Blazing Pine to burn down a cabin at a rival camp, that was for sure.

The canoe was heavy, and he shoved it up on the shore so it wouldn’t drift back into the water and leave him stranded (and leave his camp short one canoe that he’d have to find a way to distract them from). He’d come too far to go back now that his feet were on the shore. Pushing forward, he looked from side to side, trying to remember exactly which one was Belvedere Cabin. It was a little further back from the lake than some of the others, about midway between this side of the camp and the far end. But his feet seemed to have a memory of their own, muscles to guide him where he needed to go. Orienting himself to the window closest to the counselor’s bed, which if he recalled correctly, was in it’s own bedroom, just like his was, he picked up a pebble, aimed, and let go.

Nothing.

He picked up another one, and that hit the side of the cabin, not the window.

The third? Nothing.

Rhett was giving up. Either Griffin was already asleep or he didn’t want to see him. Either way, Rhett wasn’t about to get his heart broken right here, not after a whole year of wanting and waiting. He’d made a really dumb choice not to get Griffin’s address at the end of summer, in part because he feared that his mother would somehow know that his penpal from camp was actually a lover. It seemed easier to hold him close on the last night of camp, kiss him and promise “next summer, next summer I’ll see you again, right? Yeah? Good.” That felt like a better plan, arms wrapped around the skinny, shivering guy in his arms as he planted kisses on his shaven jaw and promised a reconnection.

Clearly, Griffin hadn’t anticipated seeing Rhett as much as Rhett had hoped to see him. If he did, he’d already be outside, Rhett convinced himself. He picked up one more pebble, hurling it angrily toward the window. He wasn’t mad at Griffin. Not really. He was mad at himself for ever believing he’d want him again this summer. Apparently not. Or maybe he was just asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. Quarantine has me forgetting what days of the week are. New post coming Tuesday.


	7. Bitten

_ I severely underestimated how much mosquito spray to bring this summer. You didn’t warn me about the first meeting being outside and I have bites all over me. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite this itchy. Except maybe that time we accidentally got poison ivy, but you know. Other than that. _

_ The campers come the day after tomorrow and I’m not really ready for them. I thought I was, but the idea of having all these campers coming, some of ‘em coming back and expecting you? That’s the part I’m not ready for. I’m not ready to tell everyone you’re not here, you know? I’ve got to figure out how to do it, what to say before they get here. How do you even tell a bunch of kids that? _

_ Do you think the camp sent a letter before? You know, to give parents a heads up about why their kids’ counselor was changing? The returning ones I mean. Obviously the new ones don’t really have to know. I’m just sort of worried about what they said or what I have to say. If I have to say anything. I guess I shouldn’t bank on having to say shit unless it happens. _

_ You were a better counselor than I’m going to be. I already know it. This outdoors shit is okay but these bug bites? I’m already afraid I’m fucking it up and the kids aren’t even here. Anyway, I’m going to have to get some sleep. I know, I’m lame. If it was your first night here, you’d probably be hanging out with the other counselors, smoking or whatever. _

_ I’m not you. _

_ I could never be you. _

_ XO, _

_ Link _


	8. Tapping

Link wasn’t usually some kind of scaredy-cat or whatever. That wasn’t who he was. But for some reason, alone in his cabin, the tapping on his window was freaking him the fuck out. His co-counselor for the cabin was off partying, and that was fine. Hell, he’d been invited and declined for what? So he could sit and wallow? Whatever. It had been his choice to be here alone. He just hadn’t exactly anticipated the fact that it was going to be so much quieter out here than Raleigh. He’d already chased a cricket out of his cabin, and now he could hear this  _ tap, tap tap, tap  _ and it was driving him insane.

He was too far away from the trees for it to be that. Maybe it was even his co-counselor trying to scare the fuck out of him for not going to hang out with everybody. That was probably it, he told himself, and he nestled into his blankets. He wasn’t tired. He just needed to be alone to think. Everything had happened too fast and had been too much. No amount of warning was really enough to prepare him, not really. He’d always expected everything would take longer than it had, and it hadn’t.

Which left him here. In a cabin. By himself in the dark. With that tapping. That fucking tapping. Clearly ignoring it didn’t work, so he scrambled for a flashlight. If it was his co-counselor, he’d have to resist going off on him. He couldn’t afford any enemies this early in the game. Not really. It was going to be a long enough summer as it was. Enemies would only make it worse. As he got to the doorway of his bedroom, he heard a louder tap, something more insistent, and it sent him racing to the cabin door. Whoever it was wasn’t giving up, and he didn’t like the idea that they were fucking with him. He patted his pockets. His pocket knife was in his bag.  _ Shit.  _ Not that it would have done any good. What was he going to do, stab whoever was tapping? That wouldn’t look good for him.

“Who are you?” Link could see the dark figure walking away and damn, he was tall, whoever he was. But “tall” wasn’t helpful outside of making it clear it wasn’t his co-counselor. He was shorter than Link was. Heck, he was almost as short as Griffin, and he’d only been 5’6”.

The figure froze and turned around, taking a few steps closer. “I’m Rhett. Griffin here?”

“No,” Link answered him.

“He go to the party?” Rhett nodded toward a cabin that was clearly lit up and clearly vibrating with music. Griffin had always said the owners looked the other way when it came to pre-camp partying, but he hadn’t realized just how true that was with the loud thud of the music.

“No,” Link repeated. Anyone who needed to know knew by this point, so whoever the fuck this was, he didn’t need to know.

“Can you tell him Rhett said hey?”

“No, I can’t,” Link said, crossing his arms in front of him. “Who the fuck are you anyway?”

“Rhett. I already said—”

“Yeah, I got it. Got your name. I mean what the fuck are you over here looking for Griffin for?”

“We promised we’d see each other this summer,” Rhett said, slumping his shoulders a little. “That okay with you or you some kind of bodyguard here to not let me talk to him?”

“I already told you,” Link shrugged. “He’s not here.” He didn’t want to get into this. If he did, he might cry, and crying looked unseemly when he was trying to be intimidating.

“Not here as in he’s not here right now or not here as in he won’t be here this summer?” Rhett asked.

“Won’t be here,” Link said. The fewer words he said, the easier it was to hold in his feelings.

“Fuck,” Rhett muttered, turning away and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Thanks anyway,” he called over his shoulder. Something didn’t sit right with Link, the way Rhett was acting and the way he was walking and everything.

“Hey, hold up,” Link called. “How’d you know him?” It was a dumb quesiton. The guy was clearly from across the lake because he hadn’t been at the meeting earlier, and the name  _ Rhett  _ was more familiar than Link wanted to admit. Griffin had told him to find Rhett at some point and say hey, to talk to him. He hadn’t really expected Rhett to find him, though, and that’s what threw him off.

“We, uh …” Rhett hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how much to tell Link. Link realized then he hadn’t even offered his name. But now Rhett was talking, so he couldn’t. “We kinda hooked up last summer,” Rhett finally said.

That was enough to make Link’s blood boil. He stepped forward and shoved Rhett hard with both hands, catching him off-guard enough to leave Rhett flat on his ass. “You’re a goddamn liar. You can fuck off to your side of the lake now, you worthless piece of shit,” Link growled, kicking at Rhett’s foot.

“What the fuck? I’m not lying!” Rhett shouted back. Over the music, no one was likely to hear them. As Rhett scrambled to his feet, he grabbed Link by the shirt, shoving him against the wall of the cabin in the darkness. “I’m telling the truth, so you can back the fuck off.” Rhett was in his face and he wasn’t backing down. Neither was Link. The thing was, Link would have believed anything Rhett told him. Rhett had been scoring pot from Griffin? Yeah, him and half of the rest of the counselors. Rhett had hung out with him? Yeah, so had everybody. But there was no way in hell in any kind of universe that Rhett and Griffin had ever done anything together. Rhett had to be lying. He  _ had  _ to.

“Let  _ go _ ,” Link insisted, trying to wriggle free from Rhett’s grasp. “Seriously, go back to your stupid camp.”

“Whatever, man. You see him around, you tell him I said hey. Or don’t. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll find a way to talk to him,” Rhett said. Clearly, he didn’t believe that Griffin wasn’t there.

“No, you won’t.”

“You can’t exactly stop me,” Rhett answered him, walking away and raising his middle finger in the air.

“Yeah, well, he’s dead, so unless you packed a Ouija board or some shit, good luck with that,” Link hollered after him. Whether or not Rhett believed him wasn’t Link’s business or responsibility. Instead, he watched Rhett until he was out of sight in the darkness, then walked inside, curled up in his blankets, and cried.


	9. Dashed

_ Mom, _

_ I guess  _ _ you don’t have to worry about me hooking up with anyone this summer. At least, that’s if the kid I ran into was telling the truth. Apparently he’s not here for the summer. I don’t believe for a second that he’s actually dead. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he went to the party and his co-counselor is really  _ _ goddamn _ _ jealous that we had a thing last year. Whatever. _

_ Anyway, if he’s actually not here, then I guess I’ll figure something else out. Oh my gosh, what if I have to focus on actually being a good counselor this year? The horror. I’m joking, ma. I guess you can’t really read that in writing, not easily. The thing is, last year I was a really kick- _ _ ass _ _ butt counselor even when I was doing other stuff. So my plan is this: _

_ -find out if he’s actually here or not, because I really get the feeling I’m being lied to. _

_ -smoke some pot to calm my nerves. I’m sorry mom, I know you’d be pissed if you knew I was doin’ that, but it really does help sometimes _

_ -catch up with him and bang him. Y’know, losing my virginity to him wouldn’t be half-bad, even if he was scrawny. I bet he’d let me, y’know, do that. I bet he would. And I guess if he doesn’t, then I’ll find somebody else to hook up with. Maybe. I don’t know. _

_ What I do know is, I kind of want to punch that guy. He was a real jerk. He even kicked me after shoving me on the ground. Who kicks a man while he’s down? I wouldn’t. What the heck? _

_ I’m gonna wrap this up here, though. I’ve got crafts to make tomorrow, little bunk tags and decorations. Last thing I need is for my hand to be all cramped up because I was writing these stupid letters. I don’t even know why I’m pretending I’m writing to you when you won’t read them. I mean, you probably would read them, but like  _ _ hell _ _ heck I’d give you the chance to. _

_ What I mean is it’d probably be easier to get a diary or some shit, but what’s the fun in that? I’ll just keep writing these and stuffing them back in the package under my bed. See you later, mom. _

_ Your son who is absolutely garbage at crafts, _

_ Rhett _


	10. Rager

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this chapter contains a brief statement in the last paragraph from a trans character about fear of cis backlash re: "trapping". Some readers may find the line uncomfortable, so if you would like a summary of this chapter instead of reading it, please reach out to me on tumblr, user linkslipssinkships, or skip the last paragraph.

Rhett couldn’t sleep. Staring at the ceiling, he went over the entire encounter in his head again. He hadn’t even gotten the guy’s name. The more he thought about it, the insane way he reacted and how he shoved Rhett when Rhett said they hooked up, the more Rhett was completely certain he was lying about the whole thing. There was no way that Griffin was dead. Mostly because nobody reacts like that over a dead guy. That was extreme.

He had to have been there, Rhett decided. Probably at the party, which he should’ve checked first. He probably could have even gotten a good buzz going. At those, the rivalry was long forgotten. It was more for hype in the first place, for fun and games like the stolen underwear thing. Not for actual malice. Which meant parties? They were fair game for anyone on either side of the lake. He could’ve gone. He could’ve gotten a little trashed. That would have been arguably better than fighting with some dumbass who was probably only jealous.

No sense in going back across the lake to the party now, and no real sense to go to the party on  _ this  _ side of the lake when it was probably already winding down. Except Rhett realized it wasn’t that late, and he could still hear music thumping faintly from the next cabin over. Part of him wanted to stay in bed, keep trying to sleep. The other part realized he’d never be able to. Instead, he stood up, tugging on his jeans. Starting out the cabin, he paused in the doorway and turned back, fishing under his bed and through one of his bags until he pulled out a small bottle of Captain Morgan. He’d brought a few of them, purchased with a fake ID of course, and he’d stuffed them in his bags in hopes of enjoying them during the summer. Mostly, he planned on sharing them, sitting on the dock with Griffin and watching the moonlight ripple across the surface of the lake, getting a little tipsy and swapping rum-soaked kisses, but if he was supposedly dead, that wasn’t going to happen.

Rhett still didn’t believe that lie for a second, but regardless, he could spare a bottle for the party. It only seemed right to contribute something now that he was showing up to it an hour and a half late when everyone else was already probably well-lubricated beyond the point of proper function. Rhett was sure some of the girls had gone across the lake instead, probably circling around it, or hell, taking a car, but that one was risky. The roundabout drive to the other side easily took longer than canoeing across, and it also required having access to a vehicle. Rhett didn’t. He’d flown to camp anyway. It was easier for them to score guys at an all-guys camp than it was here, where they had to fight off a group of women.

As far as Rhett knew, he was the only guy who would get with a guy on this side of camp. On the other side of the lake, he wasn’t sure his odds were much better without Griffin there. As he headed toward the cabin in the dark, he twisted off the top of the bottle of rum and took a long drink from it, feeling the burn of alcohol down the back of his throat. It tasted the way nail polish remover smelled. Without anything to chase it with or wash it down with, he had to sit there and continue feeling the burn of it until he stepped into the cabin the party was at.

It was, thankfully, in the one empty cabin on that side of the lake. The owners of the camp used to use it for storage until they had far too many losses from this kind of party. Eventually they emptied it out, slapped a “Keep Out” sign on it they knew would get ignored, and everyone used it as the party cabin from then on out. As long as no campers entered, and as long as the cabin stayed standing and in good condition, it was easy to turn a blind eye. It was best that no campers would be in there for the summer. A thick fog of pot smoke hung in the air, and there was no way the smell would come out even with the best conditions to air it out for the last day and a half before campers started arriving.

“Hey,” Rhett said to the first guy he saw upon entering. He was a new-ish counselor. Not so new that he’d never been to this camp before, but new enough that Rhett couldn’t recall his name immediately.

“Hey,” he nodded. “Here.” He passed Rhett a joint, pinched between his fingers, and Rhett took a long drag. He tried hard not to cough, look like a total novice. The reality was, he’d only ever smoked pot a couple of times, and it had only ever been at camp. It was a solid year since he’d tried it at all, and after several moments of holding it in, he finally started choking out a cough that earned him a laugh and a pat on the back as he passed the joint back. He pushed forward through the party, eventually finding a giant bowl filled with a murky-colored liquid.

“Want some?” A girl with a bright red hair that shook when she spoke smiled and offered him a cup half-full with whatever it was.

“What is it?”

“A little bit of everything,” she shrugged, and he accepted, downing it. It was sweeter than he’d expected, so it was obviously as much juice as it was booze, but the underlying burn of it made it dangerous. It was the kind of thing that could get you drunk fast, too sweet to fully let you realize how much alcohol you were getting.

“It’s good,” Rhett said, and she nodded.

“We’ve been adding to it all night,” she said, warm smile still ear-to-ear.

“In that case,” Rhett said, pulling the bottle of rum out from where it was tucked under his arm, “may I?”

“Go for it,” she said, and Rhett unscrewed the top, then unceremoniously dumped the rest of the bottle into the Camp Punch. “I’m Emily,” she said, extending a hand.

“Rhett,” Rhett offered up. “So are you just manning the punch station tonight, or …?”

“Me? Oh, no, I was just over here grabbing a cup and saw you. Realized I hadn’t seen you earlier and figured I should offer it up in case you’d just gotten here.” She ladled more of it into Rhett’s cup and handed it back to him. This time, he took it a little slower, sips instead of a guzzle. The last thing he needed was to get totally wasted.

“Cool. Thanks for that,” he said, smiling again. Her cheeks were pink and Rhett could tell she was working off of a solid buzz.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him through the crowd so fast his drink sloshed violently against the cup. He didn’t really have a choice but to follow, and he was certain it looked a little comical, his giant body being dragged through a crowd by such a slight girl. Didn’t matter, he followed her anyway. As she plopped down on a bunk bed, a chorus of “hey, Rhett!” rang out around them.

“Well you just know everybody here, don’t you?” She asked, smiling. Even though they were at the same camp, the girls’ cabins and boys’ cabins were positioned slightly apart from each other. Rhett didn’t know a ton of the girls who worked there, but he knew enough of them. The guys, though, he’d met most of them during previous summers at camp, mostly since they’d been cabin-mates growing up. Pretty much everyone who worked here had been a camper at some point or another. Emily, though, seemed new, Rhett figured. He thought he’d remember red hair like that, and he hadn’t ever seen her before.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Rhett shrugged. “This is my sixth year, I think? Seventh?” He’d lost count, now draining the last of his second cup of punch and wishing he’d grabbed a third. He didn’t want to be rude and walk away this early in conversation.

“It’s my second,” Emily piped up. “But I didn’t see you last year, I don’t think. Were you at the party then?”

“Oh, I was still a camper last year,” Rhett admitted. “You dove headfirst into being a counselor your first time here?”

“Yeah. I actually went to MeadowLake in eighth grade, but it’s boys only. And uh, things changed for me over the years, as you can see. Now that I’m a counselor, and pretty clearly a chick, I had to settle,” she said with a laugh, while everyone else around her groaned. The girl next to her— Ellie, Rhett was pretty sure— slapped her leg in a joking warning.

“Damn, sleeping with the enemy,” Rhett joked.

“Nah, I only sleep with people on my own side of the lake,” Emily snarked back. “Why do you think I came to this party instead of theirs?”

“Makes sense,” Rhett nodded. Emily took a joint from Ellie’s fingers, drew it to her lips, and as she exhaled, smoke came out in a perfect circle. “Whoa,” Rhett said softly, taking the joint from her now that it was his turn with it.

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Bet you didn’t expect  _ that  _ from a MeadowLake alum,” she laughed. Rhett liked her, liked how easy their conversation was. Or maybe that was just the alcohol.

As the night went on, she curled up next to him on one of the bunks, laying her head on his shoulder as they looked up at the ceiling. Giggles erupted from her mouth so hard they shook both of them, and as she laid her head back down again, Rhett worried she’d get the wrong impression. “I’m gay,” he blurted out, thankful she was the only one around to hear before realizing if it pissed her off or upset her, she’d probably just tell everyone anyway.

For a long moment, Emily was quiet, then she let out a small exhale. “Oh, I know. Us queers have to stick together,” she said, and Rhett sat up, propping himself up on his elbows and accidentally knocking her off of his shoulder.

“What?”

“I could have clocked you from a mile away, Rhett. Not because of any sort of vibes you give off, don’t worry. Just because I get it. I know. You’re just about the only guy here I haven’t had to shove off of me at some point or another anyway,” she sighed. “Poor boys don’t realize I’ve got a girlfriend. Or a dick, actually. Anyway, I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine.” Rhett wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tighter against him.

“I’ve got yours. Don’t worry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I thought it was thursday until I saw the trash truck drive by.


	11. Liar

_ There’s no way you would have cheated on me. I don’t buy that bullshit for a second. You told me I should find Rhett, that he was cool, but is this what you meant? Find him so he could make up some shit about y’all hooking up? _

_ Yeah, okay. Let’s go with that. Say that’s actually what happened. Say you came to camp last year, fucked around with him, came back to me and said you had such a great summer, and then fucked off into the great unknown saying “find Rhett, he’s cool?” Really? _

_ I don’t believe it. For one, I still have every letter you wrote me. Not a single one says that you hooked up with anybody. You tell me you love me, and that you miss me, and that you can’t wait to see me when you get home. You tell me all of that. But you didn’t say a damn thing about being with someone else while you were gone. _

_ So yeah, no, he’s a goddamn liar and he can choke. Honestly. Cool, my ass. He’s not cool. He’s a fucking piece of shit. _

_ I get that I said I’d listen to you because you knew this camp better than anybody. But I don’t think you’d feel the same if you knew the kind of bullshit lies he was spreading about you now that you’re not here to refute them. _

_ I can’t pretend to know what happened last summer. I can’t. A few letters and stories don’t exactly give me a perfectly clear picture. But I know you. I  _ know  _ you, baby. And if you didn’t tell me something happened, then I have to believe that nothing happened there. The only thing I can think that makes sense is he’s lying. _

_ Which means I want nothing to do with him. _

_ Ever. _

_ Sorry if you wanted us to be friends, but that won’t happen. _

_ I’m just trying to figure out why you’d ever want me to know him in the first place. _

_ XO, _

_ Link _


	12. Not-Think

Link wanted to not think. Or he wanted to think. He wasn’t sure. He sort of wanted both and neither at the same time, but that didn’t make sense at all. Simply put, he wanted to not think about what Rhett had said, and he wanted  _ to  _ think about everything Griffin had told him, particularly about Rhett. Had there been some sort of longing there? Some fondness or love or … hints of a hookup? Link didn’t think that was even possible. He and Griffin had only ever been together. They’d never been with anyone else, and he knew that. He knew it deep in the core of his bones and he believed that.

Still, Griffin had told him to find Rhett. He just hadn’t expected Rhett to find him first. He sort of always figured that they’d meet the same way anyone met anybody from across the lake: at a party, which Link had avoided on purpose, or at what the camp referred to as “productive ways to foster friendly rivalry,” or rather “do this instead of burning down each others’ camps, please.” Rhett throwing pebbles outside of his window and saying he hooked up with his boyfriend? Um, not exactly what Link had anticipated.

He needed to stop thinking. He needed to silence all of the doubts in his head and the things swirling and the little voice that said “he thought Griffin was there. He threw pebbles to see him.” Basically, he needed to get loaded out of his mind. What he really needed were Griffin’s famous pot brownies. That always did the trick and got him giggling. But that wasn’t exactly an option. He couldn’t make brownies. Especially not pot ones. Not at home, but definitely not at camp where he had no access to an oven.

But Link could have something, he figured, and as the music thumped from the other cabin for whatever party an all-boys group could have that wasn’t a porn in the making (Link gave himself credit for that joke in his mind), he stepped back outside into the cool night air. This time, Rhett wasn’t there to make shit up. He was long gone, back across the lake, probably doing whatever jackasses like him did with their time. Link sank to the ground next to the cabin and pulled out his pipe, placing a few pinches of weed into it. He didn’t want to waste it, since he only had so much to get him through the summer.

Lighting it, he covered the hole and took a long, slow inhale. He’d gotten used to this by now. When he first tried, he’d ended up coughing up half a lung, he figured. Griffin had shown him the ropes, though, helping him through until he had the hang of it. Now he liked the slow burn of it, the feeling of it filling his lungs. It had only taken him a year of trying it to be able to do it himself. Now he could actually hold the lighter without burning himself instead of needing Griffin to do it for him. He’d developed a scar on his thumb from trial and error. “One day you’re gonna get the hang of this, baby. I swear. Otherwise, all the pot I’m leaving you is going to be so fucking useless,” he’d laughed. That was one thing Link remembered. How hard it was when he was at the hospital. He couldn’t smoke pot there, not really. It was the only thing that made him feel better too, less nauseated and overwhelmed by everything.

The medicine wasn’t exactly helpful. Not when it came to the hell chemo put Griffin through, the vomiting, the anxiety, the way he panicked when his hair started to fall out. And in the end, not in the ways that mattered. Not in the ways that kept him alive longer. He was still gone, so why’d he have to put himself through that? Link didn’t know.

As he sat against the cabin wall, smoking just enough to calm himself down, he thought back to a night just like that one, leaned against a hospital wall, Griffin beside him. He’d convinced the night nurse to let him take Griffin out to look at the stars “just this once.” They couldn’t see a certain constellation from his hospital room, and Link had sworn he’d bring him right back inside if they could just have thirty minutes.

She’d ultimately decided it couldn’t do much harm. They  _ did  _ stargaze, and from this side of the cabin, Link could see Orion’s Belt clearly. They’d picked something simple because there was no way Link could have convincingly found anything more complicated than that. From that side of the hospital, Link passed him the packed bowl and the lighter, and before they went back inside over an hour later, the night nurse pissed off that they’d taken far longer than thirty minutes like Link had promised, they were both completely blazed.

It had been their only successful attempt at smoking pot while he was in the hospital, but it had been worth it. They’d looked at the stars, passed the pipe back and forth, and Link had laid his head on Griffin’s shoulder. They’d exchanged slow, lazy kisses and they’d shotgunned even though they no longer had to for Link to be able to smoke. Mostly, they did it as an excuse to kiss. Link remembered ending up in Griffin’s lap, grinding down on him, and how they were so close to cumming when he remembered the time and suddenly panicked. That was probably from the pot, he realized. He’d overshot, gotten too high, and let his paranoia seep in. In hindsight, they should have finished, given each other sloppy moonlit handjobs next to the hospital, because what was fifteen more minutes when they were already thoroughly fucked?

They didn’t, though, and Link could still hear Griffin say, “great, now I’ve got fucking blue balls,” as he tucked himself back into his hospital bed. Link laid down next to him, even though the nurses didn’t like when he did that, and sneaked his hand up under the hospital gown.

“These balls?” he asked, taking Griffin’s hairless balls in his hand and giving them a soft caress. That’s the thing they don’t tell you about chemotherapy. When they say you lose your hair, they never tell you that you lose  _ all  _ of your hair. Link hadn’t expected how bare Griffin would get all over his body, but down there? It was no exception.

When it first started falling out, he remembered Griffin saying “Great, now I look like a twink,” as if he didn’t already. “I mean like a twink doing  _ porn _ . Not like a normal twink,” he’d clarified. That night, though, he’d simply nodded and gasped as Link coaxed him over the edge, getting cum all over his hospital gown and kissing him before they both fell asleep, with Link still holding Griffin’s cock, his own throbbing and aching over the lack of release.


	13. Hangover

_ Mom, _

_ I’m really hungover. I’m sure that’s what you wanted to hear, too. It’s a good thing you’ll never read these because you’d be so disappointed in me, I think. I mean it wouldn’t do any good. You can’t keep me from coming back here or anything because now I’m legally an adult. But you’d probably be pretty disappointed anyway. _

_ It seemed like a smart idea to go to a party last night. What better things did I have to do? What was I going to do? Sit in my cabin like a loser? _

_ I didn’t mean to get so wasted, but that punch sneaks up on you. It might be my fault to some degree or another. I drank some rum on the way over. And then poured the rest into what everyone else was drinking while I was there. It was really sweet punch, sort of hits you harder than you realize when you drink it. _

_ Yeah, I get it. You’d be  _ ~~_ pissed _ ~~ _ mad. I was crossfaded, too. Drank a bunch of the punch, probably 3, 4 cups of it. Got _ ~~_ fucking _ ~~ _ blazed talking to some girl, Emily. _

_ Don’t get your hopes up about her, ma. We’re both gay  _ ~~_ as hell _ ~~ _~~.~~ She’s great, though. I like having someone on my side, you know? It’s good knowing I’m not the only  _ ~~_ fucking _ ~~ _ deviant here, the only one who is probably doing whatever they shouldn’t be. _

_ Not that I think what I’m doing is wrong. _

_ Just that, y’know, you and dad and our pastor would probably think so. No, you’d definitely think so. Anyway, I’ve got to get over this hangover because I have bunk tags to make. _

_ Wish I would have brought more Advil. I didn’t bring nearly enough for the summer. I’ve already figured that out. _

_ Your son and bad decision-maker, _

_ Rhett _


	14. Arts and Crafts

The last thing Rhett wanted to do was make bunk tags. Spelling everyone’s name right, in neat handwriting, with glue, then adding glitter. Did they really think the boys cabin was going to want glitter? Did they realize how glitter got everywhere and then never left?

Probably, but apparently that didn’t matter. Either way, Rhett was over it. How did one cut a leaf from green paper? He wasn’t sure. He thought a leaf would be easy, freeform, something he could do without thinking. Except it wasn’t. He should have gone with a canoe or a campfire. At least the people who picked those got a template to work off of. Leaves, though, were something he had to figure out on his own. And that sucked.

“You got it, buddy?” Emily asked him, leaning into his space.

“Who calls a grown-ass man ‘buddy,’ anyway?” Rhett asked her, nudging her with his shoulder. Her leaves were pristine and he wondered why she didn’t seem to be basically dying this morning.

“I don’t see any grown-ass men around here,” she quipped, a wide grin on her face. Rhett was thankful for her. Beyond thankful. He didn’t know what he’d do without her, honestly. It was really, really nice having an ally, or at least someone who knew his secret. And she knew. Rhett still couldn’t believe he’d just blurted it out to her, said it without thinking when he was beyond drunk and too faded to care. It hadn’t been wise. What if she’d been homophobic instead of just as queer as he was? Didn’t matter, though. Hindsight is 20/20 and she’d been fine anyway. Maybe his subconscious recognized that.

“How many of these do I have to do, anyway?” Rhett asked her. He hadn’t been listening or paying attention in the slightest and now he was royally fucked on knowing what he was even doing.

“Eight. You have 16 campers, right?”

“I think so,” Rhett shrugged. It was something he should know, something he should have been able to remember, but he was exhausted. He hadn’t stumbled home from the party until six in the morning, when someone had shaken him awake and told him to go back to his cabin. Emily had been drooling on his arm. Gross, but tolerable coming from her. Now it was only three hours later, and it was way earlier than Rhett wanted to be awake. Even a cold shower hadn’t snapped him out of his haze that morning.

“Jeez, Rhett, get it together. Eight. You have eight more. Chase is doing the other eight, right? So you’ve got to do your eight and then you’re all set. How many leaves have you cut?”

“Uh, two,” Rhett said, gesturing toward the little blobs of green in front of him.

“Those aren’t leaves,” Emily said, snatching green paper from his hand, folding it in half, and carefully cutting a shape in seconds, handing it back to him. “This is a leaf.”

“Cool,” Rhett told her. “Looks like you’ve only got seven more to cut for me.”

“Fuck that,” she rolled her eyes. “Looks like  _ you  _ have seven more to cut using the template I so generously gave you.”

_ Oh well,  _ Rhett thought.  _ It was worth a shot. _


	15. Bad Liar

_ You know the more I think about it, the more I think maybe he wasn’t lying after all. Is that bad? That I might be thinking the worst of you right now? _

_ It’s not that I’m thinking bad about you, whatever. Like what’s done is done and you’re gone anyway, so I can sit here and be all pissed off at you but what does it change? But here’s the thing. I can’t get over him coming and tapping at the window wanting to see you. Sure, maybe he was coming to get pot or something and decided to lie through his teeth, but something about what he said … I don’t know. I don’t buy it. I’m sorry. I tried to think the best of him, but that makes it so I can’t think the best of you, and … and I can’t do that. Not now. _

_ I was thinking about you last night. I mean I’m always thinking about you. But I was thinking about that time we got high at the hospital. I was thinking about the way I snuck you out and we got high. I’m sorry we didn’t get off outside. I’m sorry that we waited until we were inside so I couldn’t suck you off. And I’m sorry that I didn’t stay in the hospital bed after you fell asleep but you know the nurses didn’t like when I slept next to you because of the times it would fuck with the wires and pumps and stuff. _

_ I should have slept with you that night. I should have realized I wouldn’t have had a whole lot of time left to do that. I should have realized how stupid it was for me not to take every chance I had. I miss that. I miss the way I could tell you everything. Maybe that’s why I still write to you. Maybe that’s why I still tell you when maybe I think you did something I know you couldn’t have done. You wouldn’t have cheated on me, would you have? Nah, you wouldn’t. _

_ I still think he’s a liar. _

_ I think he’s one of those dudes taking advantage of your death to lie and make shit up because you’re not here to correct him or tell him to fuck off. _

_ It still makes me sad, though. It makes me sad to think that anyone would say you’d do that. You wouldn’t, would you? Nope. You wouldn’t. Not when what we have is so good. Or, what we had. I guess we don’t have it anymore. I guess we don’t have anything, do we? _

_ Fuck. _

_ You probably won’t even be able to read this because it’s so tear-stained. _

_ Fuck. I just remembered I can’t send these to you anyway. _

_ Now I feel even worse. _

_ Honestly I kind of want to be done. I kind of want to be with you. _

_ But that doesn’t solve anything and you told me not to anyway. _

_ XO, _

_ Link _


	16. Linked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this chapter contains brief mentions of suicidal ideation.

Link wasn’t a suicidal person. Or, he wasn’t usually. He still hadn’t fully grieved, though. It wasn’t like he had time. Three weeks ago. Three weeks wasn’t enough time to process things before burying your boyfriend. Three weeks before leaving for summer camp just because he’d been told to. Just because he’d made a promise to take over this cabin and pretend like everything was normal. Just because he’d said to live his summer the way he was supposed to.

Grief was complicated, though. Grief left Link wishing that if he did something, anything, he’d be able to get back to Griffin. That wasn’t how things worked. It wasn’t how anything worked. Drinking himself to death, throwing himself face-first into a lake, whatever, none of it would bring him back. And none of it would get them closer together. It wasn’t like he was going to show up in the same place as him. That would require an afterlife that Link wasn’t sure he believed in anymore. How could he believe in someone or something that took his boyfriend away? He couldn’t.

Griffin had only been seventeen, too. He’d been so fucking young, so goddamn young and perfect and beautiful. Link wanted to scream.

He couldn’t, though. He had shit to get done and he had to power through. Part of him wondered if that was why Griffin had insisted he come to camp. It spared him a summer of cereal and wishing he was dead. He couldn’t focus on being dead if he had to do some weird paper chain thing that counted down the number of days left in camp. He wondered what it was for, too. Was it to show them “hey, your summer of fun is about to be over in this many chainlinks?” Was it for the kids who were homesick, to tell them “only this many chainlinks until the summer ends and you can go back home?” Or was it like everything: one more reminder that they were only a numbered amount of days away from  _ the end?  _ Probably the latter, but Link shook his head. Morbid thoughts really, really needed to wait. And maybe they would once the campers got there and he had something tangible to focus on.

Chain links? Those weren’t doing it.

“Hey, how many you got?” Micah nodded toward Link’s chain.

“I— I don’t know,” Link shook his head, lifting the chain.

“Could you, I don’t know, count them, maybe?” Micah was clearly annoyed, and Link wondered if he knew why Link was so spacey. Obviously he did. He’d been Griffin’s co-counselor last year. He had to have known.

Link counted the chain links, remembering how Griffin had said Micah was really pissed he’d been given a counselor spot. They did it so he could have a more private room, and because it would be his only shot at getting to be a counselor before he kicked the bucket. It had been his lifelong dream after years of summer camp, and Micah was mad that he was being stuck with a kid as young as some of his older campers. Micah didn’t have room to talk. He was only a year older than Griffin anyway. Either way, it didn’t give Link the strongest opinion of him.

“69,” Link said, resisting the urge to snicker at the thing he and Griffin would have openly laughed at.

“Jesus,” Micah muttered. “You did too many! You were supposed to stop at 40 so we could connect them. Dammit.”

“I’m sorry,” Link sighed. “Sorry. We can take some off. I’m sorry,” he repeated. Without waiting to hear Micah’s response, he started removing links from his chain.


	17. The Last Letter?

_ Mom, _

_ The campers come today. I don’t even know if I’m ready. We’ve been in non-stop prep mode ever since the party, and that’s great, but I’ve taken exactly 0 breathers since then. I’m exhausted and the kids aren’t even here. _

_ Today I’ll have to help the scrawny little brats make their beds and stuff because I can guarantee half of them have never done it. You and dad got me started on the right foot because as a camper, I was the only one in my cabin who knew what the  _ ~~_ fuck _ ~~ _ heck I was doing. Now I’m anticipating the fact that I’ll be making most of the beds today anyway. _

_ Right now, there’s a bus picking up one group from the airport, and I’m sure the rest will start heading in with their parents. I’m also not really sure how to handle the whole homesickness thing. It’s hitting me now that I’m in way over my head. I’ve never actually done the comfort part of this. Being a camper was the easy part. I could get all the perks of camp without any of the work. _

_ I mean, it’s not like I can be a camper anymore. Doesn’t mean I’m not really ~~damn~~ nostalgic for that right now. Really nostalgic. _

_ Last summer was easy. Last summer I could go swimming or flop on the blob until my stomach was bright red from the pain. I could sneak out and meet up with Griffin, to hell with the fact that he was a counselor and we shouldn’t have been hooking up, to hell with the fact that he was from another camp, to hell with… all of it. We could get high and kiss and I could… I don’t know. I just miss that summer. I miss all of it. _

_ If he’s not here, this summer is going to suck compared. What am I supposed to do, hook up with the jealous  _ ~~_ bitch _ ~~ _ jerk who threw a fit that I was even over there? Ha (you can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes, ma). _

_ Anyway, I have to go because I can already hear the stirring of people outside. Chase and I did rock paper scissors to see who could go out and meet the campers out there and who had to sit in the stuffy cabin and wait for them to get inside there. Guess who lost and has time to write this stupid  _ ~~_ fucking  _ ~~ _ letter? _

_ Your son the absolutely terrified camp counselor, _

_ Rhett _

_ P.S. I don’t know why I cross out my cuss words when I know I’m not going to send these. I guess because even if I’m telling you stuff you’d never want to hear, I still want to have some respect, you know? Like maybe you’d hate me less if you knew that I was at least trying to be an okay guy sometimes. Even if you’d hate me for the rest of it. _

_ P.P.S. You would hate me, though, right? I’m not just imagining it? I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll actually tell you about all of this stuff that I write down and don’t say. Maybe I won’t. I probably won’t. I don’t think I’ll ever actually believe you’d be okay with me hooking up with guys or smoking pot or sneaking alcohol or whatever else. Seems like the kind of stuff dad would tan my hide for, you know? He’d probably beat the living daylights out of me. I don’t even think he’d stop at spanking at that point. Y’all would hate me forever. _

_ I guess that’s why I’m never actually going to tell you. Or I guess I’ll have to tell you some of it someday. Or maybe I’ll just move far away and never say it. You don’t want to know. You really don’t. God, I’m such a bad son, aren’t I? Sorry, mom. I don’t think I can change. Maybe the pot or the drinking or whatever, sure, maybe that. _

_ But I’ll always be gay. _

_ That’s the part I’m struggling with, ma. That’s the part you guys would really struggle with too, if you knew. But you don’t know, so I guess we’re okay. I’m not going to keep using these letters to analyze who I should and shouldn’t be or what you’d be disappointed in. I’ll drive myself crazy if I do that. I think I’m just going to write and pretend like you’d accept me anyway. _

_ Or maybe I’ll stop writing to you and just keep a journal after all. Then I don’t have to feel so freakin’ guilty about everything. It won’t eat away at me if I’m not pretending the letters are to you anymore. _

_ Bye, mom. This is the last of the letters you’re never gonna see. _


	18. Shitfaced

Making beds was the least of Rhett’s worries, honestly. He should have known that it would get worse than that the moment he’d thought that the beds would be the hard part. He should’ve known that there would be a camper so worried about being away from his mom for the summer that he’d throw up all over his sheets and need them washed immediately, with Rhett having to haul the nasty fabric halfway across camp trying desperately not to get any on himself. He should’ve known that there was going to be a camper with food allergies so severe that they had to confiscate half of the snacks the campers had in their bags just to prevent him going into anaphylactic shock, then have to wonder why his paperwork didn’t match that fact at all, realize he was lying because he didn’t like the  _ smell  _ of peanut butter, make three calls to his mother and his doctor and his father in another state, and then return all of the confiscated snacks back to the campers they belonged to.

He should have known what a long summer it would be when those things happened. And he should have known what a nightmare he’d be living when that happened. But he didn’t. He didn’t realize that it was going to be harder to be a counselor than dealing with a few unmade beds. It was at that point he wanted to turn around, leave, and never come back to his stupid fucking camp.

But he couldn’t get out of it now. He’d committed to the full summer and he had to see it out. Barring any life-threatening injuries or snake bites or whatever else, he had to deal with it. By his fourth incident of the day, this time a bloody nose from the same kid who had thrown up all over his sheets, and this time all over the same sheets Rhett had just made his bed with after they were washed and dried, Rhett considered walking outside and  _ looking  _ for a snake to bite him.

As soon as the campers were in bed asleep, Rhett crawled out of his bed and twisted off the cap of his bottle of rum. He needed to pace himself if he was going to make these last all summer long. He couldn’t go through them this quickly or he’d run out. A few swigs couldn’t hurt, though, and he took a long pull on it, swallowing heavily. Chase swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. “What are you doing?”

“Getting shitfaced,” Rhett admitted. “I didn’t expect it to be this hard.”

“Neither did I,” Chase said. “Guess one of us should probably stay sober,” he sighed. The longing in his voice was obvious.

“Fuck that. Here.” Rhett reached up, passing the bottle to Chase. “I mean we can’t both get plastered but at least take the edge off, man.”

“Thanks,” Chase said, drinking several gulps without even flinching. Rhett realized then that he hadn’t packed enough alcohol after all. They were down half a bottle and he only had a few left. He’d either have to beg for some, barter for some, slow the fuck down, or find someone with a car and take an impromptu trip to town one night. Either way, he’d figure it out. Mostly, he probably didn’t need to drink  _ quite  _ that much as a counselor anyway. Not that they didn’t all do it. It was their summer, too, not just the campers, and he’d be damned if he didn’t have a little fun. That was part of being a counselor.

“I’m going to go check on everybody,” Rhett said, taking another drink and passing the bottle back to Chase. “You mind if I go out after that?”

One of the counselors had to be in the cabin with the campers at all times. There were always campers who would sleepwalk or start to wander, ones who would get homesick and start crying, the threat they might accidentally wake the others on the horizon. And in cabins with older campers, there was always the chance that they’d sneak out too, the way Rhett had the summer before. That was always a possibility they needed to watch out for. In younger cabins with campers around 13, 14 like Rhett and Chase had, though, the big fear was the homesickness. If Rhett left, Chase would have to be there to deal with it alone. He wasn’t going to leave without permission.

“Go for it,” Chase said. “I can take ‘em.”

“Thanks,” Rhett said from the doorway, watching as Chase came dangerously close to draining the bottle of rum. Part of him worried about leaving Chase here alone and drunk, but as Chase lidded the bottle, tossed it to Rhett, Rhett resolved to go across the lake anyway. He polished off the bottle and shoved the empty remains in the bag he’d gotten it from. “Give me a couple of hours?”

“You sneaking into that red-headed girl’s cabin?” Chase asked him.

“Nah. Gotta run across the lake,” Rhett said. He didn’t really want to explain why, that he was going in search of Griffin, seeing if Link was lying about him not being there or telling the truth.

“Getting some more booze? Wise choice,” Chase said. Rhett realized he didn’t need to confirm or deny. If he came back empty-handed— and he knew he would— he could simply tell Chase he hadn’t found anyone to get it from. It was too easy.


	19. Anger

_ I’m lonely. _

_ I know I shouldn’t be. But I am. _

_ It’s hard not to think about when I’m alone at night and thinking about how you could be here, how we could have been counselors together. Not that it would have worked like that. Still, a guy can dream. _

_ Micah’s on the bottom bunk and I’m wondering if he knows, if you ever told him. Told him about me or about us, told him what we had. Or maybe he’s going in blind, unaware of why I’m so broken up about you. _

_ I can’t get you out of my head. And he just seems annoyed and pissed off by everything in the world. _

_ I know it isn’t fair to be mad at you for leaving. I know that. I know it isn’t okay for me to be angry because it wasn’t your choice. But part of me thinks if you had just tried one more treatment, or if you’d just held on a little longer, or if the transplant would have worked, or… or… any number of things your body couldn’t hold out for, then maybe you’d still be here. _

_ I sometimes wonder why you decided against the last round of Chemo. What if it could have saved you? What if it would have changed things and you would’ve been okay? I know you decided with the doctor that the harm it would put you through, the sickness and the weakness and shit, that it wasn’t worth it, that it would be better for you to just let it happen. _

_ It doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at him for not making you do another round. _

_ At your parents for not insisting he give you another treatment. _

_ At you for agreeing to let go without it. _

_ I’m not really mad at you, not in the way it seems. I’m not but I am. _

_ You were supposed to be here. You were always supposed to be here. You were so young and you weren’t supposed to go that fast and I’m mad. I’m mad at you. I’m mad at God if he exists. I’m mad at myself for getting so close to you, but then I’m not. I’m thankful that I had the time. It’s complicated. It’s really fucking complicated and I really fucking miss you. _

_ Are the tears ever going to stop? Or am I just supposed to feel this shit forever? _

_ XO, _

_ Link _


	20. Across the Lake

Link stared at the ceiling. There was something shitty about the idea of everything happening the way it did. Maybe if he’d had time to process his grief before coming here things would have been different, but he didn’t. And now the campers were here. He couldn’t do this shit.

“You okay up there?” Micah grumbled.

“Sorry,” Link said. He tried to still his body, but he couldn’t stop tossing, and in turn, moving the entire bunk.

“What the fuck are you doin’?” Micah asked. “You jackin’ off? Because there’s a bathroom in this cabin. Go in there, man.”

Link hated him. He hated him with every fiber of his being. But not as much as he hated Rhett. Rhett was still weighing on his mind, still pissing him off. He needed to think.

“I’m not jackin’ off. I just can’t sleep,” Link sighed. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

“And leave me with the campers? Fucking great.”

“At least then you’d be able to get some sleep,” Link snapped. He climbed down the ladder to his bunk and fished around in his bag for pot.

“I could if you’d get the fuck out and go for your walk already,” Micah grunted. Link hadn’t found it, but he wasn’t about to listen to Micah any more. He’d have to deal with it sober. Walking quietly, he headed out the door, closing it behind him as gently as he could.

He’d never smoked before he met Griffin, and now his body ached for the mind-numbing release of being a little high. It made him feel less anxious, made him think less about how upset he was over everything. Griffin had gotten it as a way to make himself less nauseated from all of the treatments. His parents didn’t like it, didn’t condone it, but they always looked away and pretended they didn’t know he was smoking it. Link’s parents would have killed him if they knew that Griffin shared. At first Link had just sat with him whenever he smoked, tried to make sure he didn’t cross the line of the high that helped and the too-high that got him paranoid. But then Griffin had started kissing him between, and kissing turned to taking drags and shotgunning, blowing the smoke gently into Link’s mouth until Link was high, too. From there things only escalated until Link was smoking regularly. With or without Griffin, he’d sometimes smoke a bowl before bed, get himself calmed down.

Mostly he did it to forget Griffin was sick. When he couldn’t forget that, he did it to take his mind off of how bad it was. When he couldn’t do that, he did it to let himself stop feeling for a few minutes, or to give himself into feeling more. Now, he did it to cope. But Micah wouldn’t even let him have that, and as he slumped against the side of the cabin, sitting in the dew-soaked grass until his ass was a little wet through his shorts, he sighed softly.

“Griffin?” The voice snapped Link to attention.

“No,” Link said. “He ain’t here.”

“Oh. It’s you.” Link didn’t have to see the figure there to know who it was. It was obviously Rhett again.

“You sound thrilled.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Link snarked back, considering standing up and going inside. “If you’re looking for Grif, he isn’t here,” Link repeated. “Won’t be here all summer.”

“Yeah, you said as much,” Rhett said, sitting down beside Link. “If I sit here, you gonna hit me again?”

“Didn’t hit you the first time,” Link said. “What are you doing here? Still think I’m going to magically disappear and Grif is going to take my place or what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why the fuck I’m here,” Rhett admitted, defeat in his voice. “Hard habit to break, I guess.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Link said dismissively.

“Too late. Rum’s gone.” For the first time, Link could detect the slight slur in Rhett’s words, realizing all too late that he was drunk. He hadn’t even noticed the swagger in his step before that. Link leaned his head against the cabin wall. He wanted to leave, to go back inside and not have this conversation. The other part of him couldn’t will himself to move. Besides, it was nice sitting next to someone, even someone who hated him.

“It’s only the fourth day of summer.”

“And?” Rhett demanded. “Anyway, I just needed to sit down for a sec before paddling back.” He started to push himself off of the ground when he’d only been there for a minute.

“You can stay. I’ll go inside,” Link offered. “Just don’t fall asleep out here.”

As if on cue, Rhett slumped over, head on Link’s shoulder before Link realized he was even that close, and let out a loud snore. “Fuck,” Link said, scooting away and, before Rhett could flop over onto the ground, he sat up with a laugh. “You’re such a prick,” Link said, realizing it was a bit all along. Who did that? Who leaned into someone else’s space like that, fake-slept as a joke?

“Sorry,” Rhett said. “So where is Griffin, anyway?”

“Told you already. He’s dead,” Link said. For some reason, drunk Rhett was a little more tolerable than the Rhett he’d encountered before. Link hated saying the words out loud, hated the idea that it was real at all.

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“You take his place, then?” Rhett asked him.

“Something like that,” Link answered. Before he could say anything else, explain any more, Rhett let out another snore, head tipped back against the cabin. This time, it wasn’t a bit. “Jesus,” he groaned, shaking Rhett awake.

“What?” Rhett startled at the movement, eyes hazy in the moonlight as he looked at Link.

“Aw, fuck. You’re not in any state to make it back across the lake, are you?” Link sighed. “How the fuck am I going to get you back over there and then get back myself?” He sighed and shook Rhett again, noticing he wasn’t answering any of the questions Link presented.

“What?” Rhett jumped again.

“Get off your sorry, sloppy drunk ass and come with me,” Link said, standing to his feet and reaching down for Rhett, pulling him to his feet and slipping Rhett’s arm around him. “How much you have to drink anyway?”

“Half a bottle of rum.”

“Jesus,” Link repeated again, guiding Rhett to the shore. “Alright,” he said, lowering Rhett into the canoe. Rhett flopped into it so hard that his body almost dislodged it from the shore. “Looks like I have to take you back. And then… fuck, and then what? If I send your canoe back with you, then I’ve got fuck-all to get back over here with,” Link realized. Rhett was no help, snoring softly in the bottom of the boat. “Lucky that I don’t drown your drunk ass in the lake,” he sighed, nudging Rhett’s feet aside and getting in the canoe himself. When he’d said he was going to go for a walk, he had expected to sit outside and get high. When that failed, he’d expected to sit outside.

He absolutely didn’t expect to row some drunk guy from across a lake back to his fucking cabin. “Alright, Rhett, I’ll get you back to the shore. It’s your responsibility to find your goddamn cabin.” Rhett didn’t hear a word Link said as he shoved off from the side of the lake. He didn’t hear a word until they were halfway across, when he leaned over the edge, steadied himself for a moment, and puked his guts out over the side of the canoe. “You’re a real winner, aren’t you, Rhett?” Link muttered. One thing was absolutely certain in his mind: if Rhett’s lie about hooking up with Griffin wasn’t already unbelievable, it was absolutely clear that it was a lie now. Griffin would never, ever go for someone as disgusting, drunk, and pathetic as that guy.


	21. Sober Up

_ Mom, _

_ I know I said I was done writing these like I was writing to you, but apparently I’m not. I  _ ~~_ fucked _ ~~ _ screwed up. The thing is, you know when you make some  _ ~~_ shitty _ ~~ _ bad choices? Anyway, it seems like they snowball. Here’s all the stuff I did wrong last night: _

_ -Got  _ ~~_ shitfaced _ ~~ _ completely wasted from the stash of rum I brought _

_ -Shared enough with Chase that he was completely wasted _

_ -Left a drunk counselor in charge of kids on their first night of camp _

_ -Paddled across a lake in a canoe while completely drunk _

_ -????????????? _

_ -Ended up in my cabin somehow, but I don’t really know how _

_ -I think that’s it _

_ Are you proud of me yet, mom? Am I doing great? Everything you dreamed of? _

_ I’m sorry, ma. _

_ Seriously. For everything. _

_ I’m never drinking again. _

_ Your now-sober son, _

_ Rhett _


	22. Cure

Rhett didn’t know how, but he had gotten back into his cabin and into bed. The nature of what had happened there still escaped him as he woke up to the sound of blaring trumpets. At first, he thought he was dreaming the ear-piercing sound that creaked through his ears and into his soul, stabbing at his head like a knife and threatening to rip his brain out through his eyeballs in tiny ribbons. He was hungover, that much was obvious.

“What happened last night?” Rhett groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was get out of bed, talk to his campers for their morning pep talk, and then divide up the ranks with Chase and take them to their daily activities.

“Tell you later, man,” Chase said. He was already up and at ‘em. He was smaller than Rhett and had downed far more rum, but he didn’t seem affected in the slightest. Rhett didn’t know what sort of superpowers he was operating off of, but whatever it was seemed to be working. “Come on!” He tossed a shirt from the floor at Rhett’s face, allowing Rhett just enough time to drag himself out of bed, tug it on over his head, and find some shorts.

The shirt was standard-issue for all of the counselors there. Their cabin was a “green cabin,” which meant in the cycle, they did “green cabin” activities, versus red or blue or purple. Each cabin had its own color, and each color had its own activity day. For them, day one meant hiking. It was an effective way to keep cabins from overlapping too much, while still allowing them to mingle within their cabin color. There were three cabins per color, and 12-14 campers per cabin. Most of the time, they tried to make a younger cabin, an older cabin, and a cabin in the middle range all in the same color to give a little diversity to the lineup and allow everyone to mingle more.

Most of the time that worked well. Sometimes it failed miserably. It almost always meant the older ones could get away with murder while the counselors wrangled all of the younger teens who didn’t quite know the rules yet. That’s how Rhett had managed to sneak away so many times the year before. His campers were young enough, though, that he wouldn’t let them out of his sight. Or Chase wouldn’t. Neither of them would.

But hiking wasn’t exactly ideal after the night he’d had, however that had gone. His head was pounding and even sunglasses didn’t block out enough light. “How are you surviving?” he hissed at Chase as they headed up the end of the pack. They’d talked with the other counselors, decided on letting the older cabins lead and the younger ones hang back. Rhett didn’t mind, provided he could keep himself upright.

“Here,” Chase said, pulling a bottle out of his backpack. 

“What is it?” Rhett asked him.

“Drink first, questions after.”

Rhett did as he was told, taking a long swig of the salty, bitter liquid. He winced but didn’t stop drinking, passing the bottle back to Chase only after it was empty. “Okay,  _ now  _ what was that?”

“Hangover cure. Has all the sodium you need. Give it an hour and you’ll feel better.”

Rhett nodded and was content to silence for a while. The chatter of the campers was damning enough, painful reminders of his throbbing head. It was as if he could feel each footstep he took along the trail reverberating in his head. He didn’t really have to look where they were headed, though. He’d taken this same route as a camper since seventh grade, and even if he’d forgotten, he and Chase were merely following.

“Crazy night last night, huh?” Chase asked him about an hour into their hike. It was an hour and a half there, a session with some singing and talking, making lunch around a small fire pit for lunch, and then an hour and a half back.

“What happened?” Rhett asked him.

“I had passed out completely in bed and I guess one of the campers woke up panicked because there was a guy in our cabin. I came out of my room a little fuzzy and it was just you and some dude stumbling in. Or, you were stumbling. He was carrying you.”

“Aw, fuck, somebody saw me?” Rhett asked, completely embarrassed.

“I told him you had gotten hurt and were getting medical care, but that you’d be fine in the morning and to go back to bed. Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone knew what was happening.”

“Wait, someone was carrying me?” Rhett asked, suddenly latched onto that. He didn’t remember that at all. In his mind, he pictured Griffin, his arm draped around his small frame, hand brushing his pale skin, and as he pulled water from his backpack, he thought about his lips on Griffin’s.

“Not really carrying, just had your arm around him.” Rhett considered maybe his thoughts of Griffin weren’t just thoughts, but memory now, that he’d guided him back.

“He sort of tossed you into my arms and said I was your problem now, Didn’t leave a name,” Chase told him.

_ Griffin would have been nicer,  _ Rhett realized. “What’d he look like?”

“I don’t know, skinny?”  _ Check.  _ “Not as tall as you, either.”  _ Check.  _ “Dark hair, looked really pissed off.”  _ No match.  _ Rhett realized then that he’d had to have been guided back by … by … whatever his name was, anyway. The fact that he didn’t have any bruises this morning must have implied things had been better with him than the first time around. Not that Rhett would’ve known. Everything from the night was completely blacked out of his memory.


	23. Douche Canoe

_ Rhett’s cool, you said. _

_ He’s a fun guy, you said. _

_ I mean that’s about all you said to me. “When you get there, be sure to tell Rhett hi. He’s from across the lake, and he’s cool.” _

_ You didn’t tell me what a shitty person he is. _

_ You didn’t tell me I’d have to stay up all fucking night hauling his sorry, sloppy drunk ass across a lake while he puked over the side of the canoe and told me about how great you fucking were. You didn’t tell me he’d say “thanks, Griffin,” as I spilled his sorry ass onto the shore and contemplated just leaving him there because I’d gotten him that far and he hadn’t been any help paddling at all. You didn’t tell me that, because the canoe had come from his camp, I’d have to walk all the way back in the dark when I hadn’t even brought a damn flashlight with me. _

_ You didn’t tell me that I’d have to practically carry his drunk ass back to his cabin, and you didn’t tell me that he’d try to kiss me because he still somehow thought I was you. “God, I missed you this year. When’d you get this dark brown hair? Stopped shaving it?” _

_ I don’t even look like you. He was just that drunk. _

_ “I’m not Griffin,” I told him. “I’m not.” _

_ Not that he believed me. He’s so wrapped up in you and I don’t get it. What’d you do to him, Grif? What’d you do  _ with  _ him? He really hook up with you like he said he did? _

_ I don’t even know what to believe now. It’s just he’s so hung up on you and I don’t get why. I don’t get it at all, baby. I always believed I could trust you. Now I don’t know who or what to believe. _

_ I can trust you, right? Forever? _

_ Link _

**Author's Note:**

> Posting Schedule:
> 
> This tale is told partially in an epistolary style through letters and journal entries, and partially in a narrative style. Letters will be posted on Tuesdays, with the narrative posted on Thursdays. On weeks with no narrative or no letter (rare but it happens), no content will be posted on that day.
> 
> Love the story? Come find me on tumblr. I'm LinksLipsSinkShips over there!


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